Category Archives: History
Dive to Japanese WWII Submarine
Australia will open up to divers the wreck of a Japanese mini submarine that famously attacked Sydney harbour during World War II, after winning support from Tokyo, authorities said Monday.
To mark the 70th anniversary of the event — which sparked public hysteria in the city — New South Wales Environment Minister Robyn Parker said controlled diving would be allowed.
Bizarre Taxes Around the World
Tax is the bane of all of our lives. Indeed, as the old saying goes, “nothing is certain but death and taxes”. Governments (and not just democratic ones) seem to find the most inane things to tax; they especially like popular activities and goods, as is evidenced by the recent attempts of various governments to tax the Internet. If there is a way for them to make sure you are using it, they will tax it. In the United Kingdom televisions are taxed via the television license – though, fortunately, if you are legally blind you only have to pay half of it.
Bizarre Accidents
Strange accidents occur all over the world, every day. We see these accidents on the news and all over the internet, but some of the strangest accidents that have ever happened can be found in history books. Here are just a few of those strange accidents in history. This list has a little overlap with our bizarre disasters, but the entries are all appropriate for this list and give more details, so they are included.
Bizarre Ancient Artifacts
Lunar Anomalies
Evidence from the early space probes that Lunar gravitational gradient calculations were possibly flawed:
The United States and the Soviet Union started to send probes to the Moon in the late fifties. Most of these initial probes met with miserable failure. It is posited here that the reason for these early failures were due to a miscalculation of the lunar gravitational gradient.
How Interesting Human Beings Can Be!!!
The women of the Tiwi tribe in the South Pacific are married at birth.
When Albert Einstein died, his final words died with him. The nurse at his side didn’t understand German.
St Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was not Irish.
The lance ceased to be an official battle weapon in the British Army in 1927.
British Library buys Europe’s oldest book for £9m
The St Cuthbert gospel, Europe’s oldest intact book, will remain in Britain after a record-breaking fundraising campaign by the British Library, it said Tuesday.
Half of the £9 million ($14.2 million, 10.8 million euros) required to purchase the 7th Century copy of the Gospel of St John came from the The National Heritage Memorial Fund with charitable foundations, trusts and the public making up the rest.
5,000 Relics From Titanic to Sell in New York
Five thousand items recovered from the Atlantic grave of the Titanic, from a 17-ton piece of the hull to china used to serve first-class passengers, will go on auction in New York a century after the liner sank.
The unprecedented collection will be sold as a single lot by Guernsey’s Auctioneers in April, exactly 100 years after Titanic’s maiden voyage in the city where the doomed ship had been destined when it was holed by an iceberg off Newfoundland.
Guernsey’s described the auction as “historic,” saying it was “the first and only sale of objects that have been recovered from the wreck site of Titanic 2.5 miles [four kilometers] below the ocean’s surface.”
The auctioneers estimate the lot will sell for a whopping $189 million.
Madman at the Breakfast Table – Hitler was even sicker then you thought
The Nazi leader wanted to control the world, but he couldn’t even control his own digestion, and nor could his half-baked doctor, writes Tony Perrottet, adding perhaps a touch more detail than you might think appropriate …
Bound By Tradition!!!
On 20 October 1998, the Zhiqiang Shoe Factory in Harbin, China sent out a press release stating that they were officially halting production of a curious variety of footwear known as “lotus shoes.” This announcement may appear pedestrian to Western eyes, but in a way it was a symbolic epitaph for a bizarre custom which had been in practice in parts of China for about a thousand years: a process known as foot binding.
